Karina Garcia is busy as a family support specialist for Renton Area Youth and Family Services or RAYS. As the only one responsible for implementing the organization’s Healthy Start program, she receives one or two referrals a week from hospitals or clinics trying to place teen parents in their parenting education and support program.

As the waiting list grows longer, Garcia keeps track of the referrals and does three or four home visits a day to new or expecting teen parents.

“These little ones are growing up in these violent houses where they feel like they have no choices, they cannot achieve their dreams,” she said. “So having a baby on top of what already they are going through, it brings a lot of stress.”

That stress is what the Healthy Start program strives to alleviate as well as help parents, age 22 years old and younger, become independent.

For Renton-based RAYS the approval of Proposition 1 – Veterans and Human Services Levy is critical to keeping these services available at a quality level, staff said. Voters will decide on Tuesday, Aug. 16, whether it is important for them to support the property-tax levy which has generated $14.6 million per year for six years to implement housing and human services for veterans and those in need.

Tuesday’s vote is to renew the levy. It  will cost a homeowner of a $400,000 home about about $20 in the first year from property tax and generate more than $16 million in that same time period.

In the past years RAYS has received about $50,000 for Healthy Start from the levy. The program is a collaboration of agencies with Friends of Youth acting as the lead, along with RAYS, the Center for Human Services, Northshore Youth & Family Services and Youth Eastside Services.

In 2010 the levy funding helped serve 315 families through the Healthy Start program. Currently RAYS is helping about 30 families, and Executive Director Rich Brooks said they could use four or five people in Garcia’s position administering services because of the need.

“If the levy were not to pass, we’d have a lot of high-risk teens and young adults, who are basically going without support services,” Brooks said.

A number of families in the program are older teen parents who need support and information and education about raising children in a healthy way, he said.

They have lower levels of resources, are more isolated and need positive influences.

Healthy Start provides parenting and educational support, group activities, developmental and health screenings and provides referrals to other community resources.

In recent years RAYS has seen many clients and partner organizations affected by recent state budget cuts to human services, while as an organization they have been fortunate enough to not be directly impacted.

The organization is primarily funded through the cities of Renton and Tukwila, the United Way, King County, grants, contributions and fees for services.

However, Brooks said RAYS is more at the center of service delivery than they were two years ago, meaning their clients are seeing the governmental safety net shrink. So staff is being asked to help clients find resources to compensate.

RAYS has also had to provide bus tickets and taxi vouchers because it has become difficult for clients to get to services with the high price of gas. The agency now provides snacks to clients and emergency funds on a limited basis to families to help them pay rent and utilities to stay in their homes.

Loran Lichty, co-chair of the Regional Human Services Levy Oversight Board, is concerned about the passage of Proposition 1 because he said “in today’s economy everything is being evaluated.”

Even though he hasn’t really received any criticism or misconceptions about what the levy is funding, he is waiting to see what the voters will decide.

There has been no formal opposition to Proposition 1.

“We have really successful stories about some of the single moms who are a part of the program, where we have helped them get a job and stay out of problems with the police,” said Garcia.

Brooks and Garcia point to a reduction in domestic violence and Child Protective Services referrals among the families they serve. Not only that, but Brooks said an investment in early childhood education results in those children being less likely to be incarcerated as adults or rely on emergency health care.

“We are working with that parent to give them a sense of their own future that they didn’t have in terms of jobs or training, and we’re also working with that baby to make sure they have a decent shot,” Brooks said.